"Well, yes. I am very reasonable. But high expectations are often not reasonable in most circumstances, it's only because of my good judgement that I've adapted to these trying times."

Snort.

... She giggles.

"I should probably actually pay attention to practicalities, if I'm allegedly so reasonable. Could you make me some spare clothes so I'm not, ah. Stuck wearing the same dress while I'm here?"

A flicker of red light, and he hands her a dress - the cut is very practical, the fabric exquisitely soft, the colour a deep blue that would look stunning on her.

"Thank you, this is lovely. Also, why are you so good at making things pretty this isn't fair."

"I have a lot of practice."

Another flicker, another dress, this one a little fancier.

"Right, right, but dresses have very different requirements from stonework, do you have a lot of practice with dresses in particular?"

There's a place to put these away, right? Because then she can start doing that.

Yep! When she opens the wardrobe he starts filling it with flickers of red light that turn into assorted articles of clothing.

"I have a lot of practice with clothes. Somewhat less with girls' clothes but not none; you're hardly the first one I've kidnapped."

"... True," she acknowledges, elation deflating slightly.

"Sorry."

She considers him. When she'd used the word 'princess' before, it had been almost casual, airy. It hadn't had the weight of the responsibility or the demands involved pulling it down to reality. None of the dignity. She was a girl who just so happened to be a princess. For a few seconds, the woman standing in front of him isn't the holder of a casual title. She is a woman who might one day be a queen - a woman who will be worthy of being a queen. It's the expression of someone who understands, and is not taking him lightly.

"Thank you," she says, with a hint of a smile.

...he smiles back.

Smile!

"So!" she says, back to her more cheerful default, "What about bathrooms? And is there an easy way to find you if I need food, or a way to acquire food without you actually making it for me right then, so I don't necessarily have to bother you about it?"

"There's bathrooms! And a garden! I bet you'll like the garden, it's very pretty."

... Head tilt.

"Is it a vegetable garden?" she wonders, slightly puzzled.

"Not exactly. It's magic," he explains.

"Huh. Is it magic where it grows food that isn't typically found on plants, or magic in some other way?"

"Well, I don't know what exactly you're imagining when you say 'food that isn't typically found on plants'... it might be easier just to show you."

"I could also guess wildly for your amusement! But yes, probably easier just to show me. We can go now, if you like?"

"Suits me."

Smile.

"Which way to the garden then? And can I get there easily without being carried there by a dragon?"

"Down, and yes."

He leads her out into the waterfall room, and down to floor level and through a door that follows the water, and on the other side there is another, smaller waterfall pouring down into an indoor river that winds away between small, attractive indoor hills.

The room is the biggest one she's seen yet, its ceiling splashed with sparkling clusters of magelights that do an excellent job of mimicking the warm glow of the sun, and it's less like a garden than like a particularly clean and beautiful patch of wilderness. The walls curve away in an irregular shape, some parts carved and decorated while others look more like part of a natural cave; there isn't any single place you could stand to see the whole garden at once.

There is fruit on all the trees and berry bushes, and here and there a patch of recognizable vegetables; but there are unfamiliar things too, a tree whose drooping willowy branches bear clusters of dark blue-and-purple berries, a vine that climbs the walls and dangles round soft-skinned fruits streaked red-orange-yellow in interesting patterns.

"Can't promise you'll like everything but none of it's poisonous," he says.

What was that thing she was doing before? Awed staring? Yes she'd like a second helping of that, please, thank you.

"Edible's the important part. It seems sort of unfair to demand that every food thing you make be to my taste."

He beams delightedly at her.

She beams back, then goes to try the unfamiliar things. What do the berries from the tree taste like?